full review will be posted on my goodreads and instagram in march 2022.

first 5 star of the year!!
when i say i love YA mystery, this is what i mean.
The twist, the turns, the unreliable narrators - everything.
calliope bolan is starting at tipton academy. she’s looking to leave her small town and move on from her mothers tragic death, but ends up finding answers that she didn’t even know she wanted.
the dark academic atmosphere mixed with fall is everything I need. I loved the secret society aspect, along with the mix of her mother.
The characters are written so well to the point where you trust them all, just to be completely mind blown by what’s to come. you feel actual betrayal and confusion, which is something i love in a book.
kit fricks draws you in so well, and creates such a perfect setting then it all twist and turns so fast that it’s perfect.
The short chapters, mixed with fast pacing make for an epic read. This book is on the longer side at a little over 400 pages but it needed every last page. I never once was bored, or thought information could be left out of the story. The author set everything up perfectly for the big reveal at the end.
Speaking of the ending, OMG. I was So mad.
We better be getting a second book because I’m not ready to leave these characters or this story behind yet.
Kit Fricks is definitely going on my radar, and this is going down as one of my favorite ya mystery books. I recommend.


- e- arc provided by simon and schuster for my honest review. all opinions are my own!

I got this arc from NetGalley and these opinions are my own. I think this book was a twisty ride! There is so much morally gray in this book and I really enjoyed that. I often thing about how far someone would go for someone they love and truly people that you couldn’t know until you were faced with that dilemma. This book really captures that! Calliope is tired of being the girl in a small town whose mom died in an accident, one that almost killed her and her two sisters. She enrolls in a private school, one her mom attended, hoping to understand her mom better and also see if she can figure out what happened that night because she doesn’t believe her mom would try to kill them or herself. At school she joins a secret society, that her mom was also in. There goal is to promote social justice on campus and call injustices to attention! It’s all fun and games but is there something more to the secret society? Are they somehow connected to her mom’s death? I think a lot of times secret societies are shown as people who get away it’s crappy things so I like that this society was a group of people working for social justice goals! I liked that while the group did good there is still some morally gray area in how the group proceeds with their “larks” as they call them. As with most secret societies there even more gray then they originally seem to be and I think some very interesting dilemmas are posed in the book. I feel like a lot happens towards the end of the book but the book doesn’t feel slow even with that! It’s intriguing and there’s enough intersecting mysteries going on to keep you engaged until the end! I’ve read some reviews that talk about the ending and if you like perfectly wrapped endings that will be difficult with this book, I found it fitting that the ending left you wondering! If felt appropriate for a book riddled with moral dilemmas and gray areas! I liked Calliope and she’s very relatable! Kit Frick’s book is perfect for people who like mysteries and a definite read!

I was so excited to get approved to read Very Bad People. I read this in an afternoon and it was a deliciously dark and suspenseful ride. I love dark academia and I know that my students are going to enjoy this one.

Very Bad People was a nice boarding school thriller/mystery. Calliope is one of three sisters from a very small town where everyone knows each other and everyone knows that Calliope's mother and sisters were all in a car accident that killed her mother. But no one knows why. Calliope enrolls in an exclusive boarding school in an effort to get some distance but also to learn more about who her mother was. Soon Calliope finds herself with more mysteries than she can handle.

I enjoyed this one for the secret society and for Calliope's healthy skepticism. I loved the overall tone of the book - gave me Virgin Suicides meets The Skulls vibes. However, some resolutions felt too ambiguous and unresolved for me to be satisfied.